PBS has a 42-year history of supporting diverse, under-represented music in Melbourne and have amassed an incredible collection of music. After 20 years of being located at Easey St, the team has recently moved down the road to Collingwood Yards.
The new station is, however, a little smaller, and after 20 years at Easey Street the team had collected a lot of stuff. In addition, a combination of announcers using their own record collections and preferring to use digital formats has meant that the PBS collection had been largely sitting in shelves unplayed and untouched.
Saying goodbye to Easey street… and hello to the new premises at Collingwood Yards.
There was not enough room to take everything to the new premises, so an exhaustive process of sorting out what to keep and what to let go was undertaken.
“We knew that we didn’t want these records to go into landfill; we wanted to give this music the opportunity to be passed on to fellow music enthusiasts” remarked Meg Butler, Marketing Manager at PBS. “We decided that the best option was for us to auction the items, so have worked with Melbourne-based Abbeys Auctions to put together a Records and CD online Auction”.
A lot of the items auctioned were vinyl and CDs heard blasting across the PBS 106.7FM airwaves many years ago but are now available in digital format. With such passionate and knowledgeable volunteer announcers, the team were able to use their knowledge to identify the really important items to keep. Australian music and music not available in digital format has been retained.
Collectors will be excited to find some early pressings and rare releases in this auction. It is estimated that the numbers of vinyl and CDs are in the thousands and a lucky few may also pick up a record display shelf, a kitchen table with 4 chairs and other bits and pieces that were no longer required by PBS when they moved.
As a PBS & music lover himself, Matthew Fiedorowicz, Manager of Consumer Auctions at Abbeys Auctions was thrilled with the task of working through the thousands of records and CDs to pull together an online auction. “While there are some gems to be found amongst the 1000s of records, I think collectors will be particularly excited by the cd’s. There are heaps of demos and rare releases that you’ll struggle to find ever again.”
Proceeds from the auction will go towards the PBS Make It Home fundraiser, which will help to pay for the building and fit out of the new station. So not only does this auction provide an opportunity to give these records a second life, but it also helps PBS stay on air and sustainable into the future.
A unique feature of many of the records and CDs in this auction is that they have a permanent reminder of their origins, as Meg Butler explains. “In the past, PBS had a lot of people coming and going from the station, so in an attempt to keep records coming back to the library, people used to write “Stolen from PBS” in case someone “accidentally” took it home! These days we find a simple sticker that says PBS is sufficient!”
It goes to show that there’s always something interesting at Abbeys Auctions – and it pays to check the auctions on a weekly basis as stock is always changing!
Abbeys now offers a Premium Vinyl Record auction monthly and collectors will often find vinyl, CDs and other music items in our weekly estate auctions so it pays to browse through the online catalogues. Better still, if you register to create and account you can set Lot Alerts so that you are sent emails whenever items meeting your criteria are placed online! View our current online auctions by visiting here.
